trees are growing
by Ivan Akhmetyev
translated by J. Kates
* * *
trees are growing
beasts are alive
i think
God is
* * *
in my soul there is
a child and an old man
the old man needs rest
the child a caress
* * *
fake christmas trees are good
what a pity though
they don’t shed their needles
* * *
in winter you can’t tell
living trees
from dead ones
* * *
who does better at one thing
does worse at another
* * *
where we are hurried off to
nowhere we need to hurry
I never hurry
* * *
it’s in reality
we forget our dreams
and dreaming
we remember them all
wonderful!
all our dreams
are preserved
* * *
i am a master
of russian speech
(as much
as everyone)
* * *
that’s the way i write
there’s no other way i can
that’s the way i can
there’s no other way i write
* * *
don’t be afraid
it’s nothing at all but
a collision of words
* * *
my poems
are very simple
i have already
written many of them
* * *
“i write little
but unlike anyone else”
my mother said
“don’t boast
maybe you will write like others
but more”
* * *
good poems
don’t cancel out
other good poems
* * *
such poems
are contagious
you not only
remember them
but you start
to write your own
* * *
like Michelangelo
when i peel a potato
i remove what’s superfluous
* * *
Khlebnikov is our father
Kharms is our teacher
Christ our Savior
* * *
the avant-garde
is a garden of stones
only who hasn’t been throwing
his own pebble
into this one
* * *
don’t look at this
it’s for me
* * *
a new word
i can make use of
or not
but already there is nowhere
to get away from it
* * *
writing in the dark
i didn’t notice
the pen doesn’t work